Unexpected (and Unwelcome) Change in Plans

DATELINE: HUTCHINS, TX, 5:00 p.m. CST

No doubt the astute readers of this blog are confused about the dateline at the top of this report. It's supposed to read, "VAN BUREN, AR", because, as you all know, I'm scheduled for a training class today through Thursday. You regular readers also recall that Dispatch has had trouble getting me home on time lately. Well, they've performed equally admirably in getting me to Van Buren. That is to say, they didn't. Apparently their lone priority for company trucks is to make sure they're pulling loads (or on their way to pick one up). NOT getting drivers where they're supposed to be, even if it's for a scheduled training course so the driver can become an even greater asset to the company. Anyway, here's my story since I left off in West Memphis on Sunday.

After I completed blogging, I treated myself to dinner at the Mexican restaurant down the street from the terminal. When I got back to my truck, I had a message from Dispatch that my current load (the one with the troublesome trailer) had been set up for me to drop it there in West Memphis so I could get another assignment. Just a bit later the next gig came in: grab a loaded trailer from the West Memphis lot and take it to its 8:30 a.m. delivery in Garland, TX. Now, this was after 7:00 p.m. It's about an 8-hour drive from West Memphis to the Dallas area (Garland is a northeast 'burb of Dallas), so that meant I'd have to get rolling by midnight. Fortunately, it also allowed me to grab 3 hours of shut-eye, much-needed since I'd been up all day. (Well, I did have a couple of short naps that afternoon.)

So my alarm woke me at 11:00, I hooked up the new trailer, stopped by the nearby Pilot to weigh the truck, and headed west. By the time I reached the Texas border at Texarkana, I was feeling the fatigue, so I pulled into the Texas Welcome Center/Rest Area there and--wonder of wonders--found an open parking spot. (Usually hard to come by at 4:45 a.m.) I parked, sat back in my driver's seat, and grabbed a quick power nap of about 20-25 minutes. It's amazing how well those work. I then completed the drive to the delivery a few minutes before my appointment time. It was familiar territory, because the company is on the same street--just a block down--from another where I've delivered loads twice before.

I had just a brief wait for my assigned dock to open up. (That is, for the truck there before me to finish up and leave.) After that, the delivery went quickly for a live unload. Then I pulled over to the other side of their lot to await my next assignment. And wait. And wait. After an hour I sent in a message asking where I stood on "the board" of drivers waiting for assignments. The response: I was #57. Oy! That meant I had a bit of a wait yet. The problem was that as I sat there, my 14-hour clock for that shift was ticking away. By the time it got down to 30 minutes remaining with no assignment, the writing was on the wall. It was time to find a place to park for the "night". So I headed out and drove to the Love's in Rockwall, about 30 minutes away, just east of Dallas. By this time it was around 1:00 p.m.

Once parked at the Love's, I grabbed a Guacamole Bacon Burger (my latest favorite) from their Carl's Jr. outlet and returned to my truck. Lo and behold, my next assignment was waiting for me. It was for a pickup over by Fort Worth--at 3:30 p.m. Apparently the Load Coordinators and my Fleet Manager don't look at drivers' available hours, either, (or read the message I had sent them earlier about my time running out) because they assigned me the load even though it was designated as a "hot" one that needed to be picked up on time. I messaged in that I was on my MANDATORY 10-hour break and that I couldn't pick up the load in time. (By the way, the load was bound for CT, so I'd be able to haul it to and drop it in Van Buren when I got there for my class. It would have been an ideal solution.) My FM called to discuss the situation, and even asked if I could somehow make the pickup and then finish my break. This is my 3rd FM since I started with USA, and as far as I'm concerned he's not doing a very good job for me. He has the poorest track record for getting me home on time, and now he was suggesting I violate the DOT hours-of-service regulations. If he'd done his job well to begin with, he never would have assigned me the load. But somehow I appeared to be the bad guy because I couldn't make a pickup assigned to me. (Pardon me while I vent there.) Anyway, the down side to the whole affair was that if I couldn't make that pickup, then they didn't have any other loads they could find to get me to Van Buren and they'd have to cancel my training.

Now remember, the training class was for me to learn how to become a trainer in the company's Apprenticeship Driver Training program and, therefore, earn more money. Which I really need. So, needless to say, I was not in my "happy place" when a replacement assignment came in, which included a midnight pickup this morning just north of Fort Worth and delivery back in Garland at 11:00 tomorrow morning. That's right, a whole credited 53 miles there, and 53 more back. For the whole day. Oh, and did I mention that this new assignment was to pick up a loaded trailer from an intermodal transfer site? That is, I'd be picking up a trailer that had travelled to the site by rail car. So I couldn't take my empty trailer there. On the way I'd have to drop it at the drop yard we use in Dallas. So let me fill you in on how that whole trip went. It makes Homer's little "Odyssey" story seem trivial.

- At first, things started out OK, as I managed a couple hours of sleep before having to get started. But once underway, as I drove west towards "Big D", a thunderstorm rolled in. I mean a deluge of near-biblical proportions. So that slowed the driving down in order to be able to see. And it, naturally, was at its heaviest when I got to the drop yard and had to get out and unhook the trailer. I was worried going over there that I'd be slogging through mud (it's a dirt lot) to unhook, but it turned out that I was wading through a lake instead. So besides my pants getting wet from the downpour (I did have a semi-water-resistant jacket with hood, so my upper body stayed dry), my feet got soaked, too.
- Then, heading west on I-30, I got delayed in a jam when they closed the freeway, apparently due to flooding in an underpass area. But I found my way around that easily enough. (Good thing I've been in the area a few times and know the basic highway layout between Dallas and FW.)
- Next up was some difficulty finding the right road near the pickup because the provided directions gave the wrong exit number off of the highway. But, again due to my familiarity with the area, I worked that out, too.
- As I headed down the last road to the pickup, I asked, "so what's next?" It didn't take long to find out. As I neared the entrance to the pickup site, railroad warning lights came on and the gates came down across the road. Had it done so 5 to 10 seconds later and I would have made it across. So I had to wait for a lengthy train. BUT, to top it off, as the end of the train finally crossed the road, it stopped! This was a 4-lane divided road I was on (2 lanes on either side of a grass median), and the train had actually cleared my side but stopped while still completely blocking the other. So, of course, the gates stayed down and I had nowhere to go. For about 45 minutes.

Well, it's been another long day and fatigue is setting in again, so I'll just get on with it and stop dwelling on the "challenges" I faced last night. The rest of the pickup went OK, and the rain even let up. Because of the hour of the night (now around 2:00 a.m. this morning), I knew I'd never find a place to park at the nearby Pilot. But the road near it (the service road alongside I-35W) has a nice, wide shoulder and a lot of trucks park there. So I did, too, just for a short, 4-hour nap. I got up at 6:30 when parking places would be clearing out at truck stops. However, instead of just parking at that Pilot, I needed to get to one on our fuel network so I could get some cash, too. (We can get up to $160/week as a cash advance when we fuel up. Also, that Fort Worth Pilot used to be on our network, but isn't anymore. Curious--and inconvenient.) The nearest one is a Pilot in Weatherford, about 20 miles west of FW, so I headed over there. Besides fueling up, I took the opportunity to grab a shower and shave, since I was in need of those, too.

Once all cleaned and fueled up, I headed back east. With my delivery tomorrow in Garland, I want to be closer and not have to deal with rush-hour traffic between the two cities. So instead of staying in Weatherford (which was tempting), I opted for the Love's over here in Hutchins, just south of Dallas. (I've stayed here a few times before, largely because of the pull of their Carl's Jr.) I got here around 9:00 and headed right in for a Steak 'n Egg Burrito. Always something I look forward to on my sojourns into Texas. Since then I've mostly been at the online poker tables, having a reasonably good day at them. (Again, playing tournaments exclusively.) I increased my bankroll by over 12%, so it's now at $30.44, almost back up to its all-time high. My big score was a multi-table Texas Hold 'Em tournament with a $1.10 buy-in, in which I cashed for $3.85! That was for 201st place out of 3843 entrants. Of course, coming down the stretch of that one, once I made the money I went completely card-dead, so I couldn't come up with an even bigger score. Oh well, it's progress anyway, because I'd been mostly unable to make it to the money at all in the multi-table tourneys.

So now I think I've caught you up with my misadventures and I need to start working on catching up with all the sleep I've missed the last couple of days. Thanks for dropping by. Please send me some comments and questions--it does brighten my day when I see a number other than zero in the number of comments for a given posting. And keep on truckin'.